Chapter 121

No—beyond this point, it was only speculation.

The story had already gone badly off-track, so Cho Yoon couldn’t insist it would follow the original just because the protagonist gained a friend. What mattered now was how to explain what had happened if he met Moyong Seo.

If only it hadn’t been for the typhoon, I would have heard the news a bit sooner and delayed the schedule… Then wouldn’t they have arrived first, resolved their business, and left, leaving only Sa-hyeon behind? No, it’s useless to think about this now. Why did they come down here in the first place? Did the protagonist have any business receiving help from the Hao Sect during this period?

Cho Yoon’s mind was so chaotic that he didn’t even notice Sa-yeong placing the reins in his hand, nor his body automatically mounting the chestnut steed.

It was only after Sa-yeong, who had been quietly waiting for Cho Yoon’s thoughts to end, finally spoke to him that he realized he had been sitting in the saddle and driving the horse for some time.

Despite having thought he should get a means of transport like a horse if he traveled alone, Cho Yoon was startled.

The spine and muscles wriggling beneath the saddle felt awkward belatedly. His body treated the horse as a natural vehicle like a car, but as a modern person who had never learned horseback riding, he couldn’t help it. Unlike his limbs, stiff from the difference between his accustomed body and unfamiliar mind, the voice that came out of his mouth was extremely calm.

“I was lost in thought and did not hear. What did you say?”

“…If you think it will be troublesome after all, I will take measures. The Hao Sect follows the Sect Leader’s taste and is large and bustling, so it is easy to separate living quarters so you do not run into them. No, I will do that. And I will send them out as quickly as possible. How long can children of good families stick around? Surely they came to beg for some elixirs helpful for internal energy training.”

And I will beat up that jerk Lim Sa-hyeon too. Those incompetent guys in Sang-deok and Yeong-ju as well!

Sa-yeong spoke as if making a pledge while raising a tightly clenched fist. It felt commendable and sorry for no reason, as if she was trying to show her previous lively appearance. Laughing like a sigh and turning his head, he saw Cheon-oh walking side by side, driving his horse skillfully.

Surely this kid also wouldn’t have ridden a horse unless it was when he was very young.

Judging by how he observed Cho Yoon’s waist or the foot stepping on the stirrup closely, it seemed he was copying his master’s posture by eye. It seemed he could learn anything involving physical activity quickly.

If they were born in modern times, all our kids would have several gold medals hanging around their necks… That would be much better than the life of a martial artist piling up grudges day in and day out.

Having barely recovered his mood with a bright imagination, Cho Yoon suddenly came up with a decent solution. If he mixed Sa-yeong’s suggestion and the current situation appropriately, he might be able to avoid the worst.

“Right, do not neglect treating them as distinguished guests so as not to harm the prestige of the sect you belong to, but please keep their quarters a bit far apart. I do not know about me, but I wish to avoid them having a private meeting with Cheon-oh.”

“Yes, Master! It is fine as long as Cheon-ah and those brothers do not meet, right? Then wouldn’t it be enough to just tell Junior Brother not to leave his room? If Master says so, he will surely listen.”

“If you wish for me not to encounter anyone, I will do so.”

“No, it is a tour in name, so I cannot leave one person alone. If we must do so, I will also restrain myself together.”

Thinking about it carefully, there was a high possibility Cho Yoon’s face wasn’t discovered when he blocked Moyong Seo’s sword fight. He dug in immediately to subdue him, and as if that wasn’t enough, he knocked him out thoroughly, so if he hid Cheon-oh well, it seemed they could pass safely somehow. Cheon-oh would start his revenge journey in the Murim sooner or later, and since the protagonist knew Cheon-oh’s face, a confrontation was bound to happen someday, but at least they could avoid immediate bloodshed.

So eventually, I’ll have to meet them before Cheon-oh does and tell them ‘The current Cheon-oh is different from the Cheon-oh you knew’…

Is the only way really to become a mysterious eccentric? Should I say I had a dream predicting ‘the world could be ruined like this,’ followed the stars, and found Cheon-oh sitting all alone as if telling me to raise this child well to prevent the disaster? Is this too forced? But other than this, there is no particular way to convince them of the fact that I know the ‘future the protagonist knows’?

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Cho Yoon failed to notice the two children on either side exchanging glances. No matter how much he pondered, no suitable solution came out other than evading the current situation, so he couldn’t stop thinking easily either.

Cho Yoon’s horse, carrying a load of worries, moved slowly toward the new city.

It was Guangzhou, the trade city of the Hao Sect, where there was nothing one couldn’t find, from foreign luxury goods to domestic rarities.

***

The universe begins from Nothingness, passes through the wondrous One, divides into the Three Origins, and when these change into the Three Qi, the Three Powers emerge from them, and all things are completed.

This is precisely the Daoist creation of heaven and earth, the Three Caverns Origin.

Among these, the transformation of the Three Origins, which is the origin, is precisely the Three Treasure Lords, and the Three Treasure Lords are divided again into the Heavenly Treasure Lord, the Spiritual Treasure Lord, and the Divine Treasure Lord.

A young martial artist who boldly won the first tournament named wholly after such a lofty name one cannot easily utter, earning the nickname ‘Heavenly Treasure Blade’—the blade cared for by the Heavenly Treasure Lord—was a topic that heated up the entire Gangho over the past few years.

A young man whom the Decisive Supremacy Saber Peng Chi-jeong took in as a disciple and taught solely looking at his talent despite not being blood-related; an unprecedented genius who had never made a name for himself until now but terrifyingly surpassed the rising stars who had been throwing their weight around.

Coming from a secret sect that couldn’t be revealed even to Peng Chi-jeong, and possessing a mysterious body where any wound healed without a scar.

In addition to this brilliant background, everyone who met him praised his character until their mouths went dry, calling him humble, naive, and steady, so one couldn’t get tired of him.

The Heavenly Treasure Blade Lim Sa-hyeon was by far the biggest prospect of the current Murim and the idol of the youth.

Sa-hyeon, who received interested gazes and was praised wherever he went like that, was currently…

“I’m dead…”

He was devastated beyond measure.

Walking trudgingly like a person whose soul had escaped, Sa-hyeon rubbed his face dry with both hands and muttered a lament, not knowing how many times it had been today. Seeing the end of his wet tone trembling a little, it seemed he was on the verge of crying. Although Sa-hyeon attracted the popularity of everyone accompanying him thanks to being always bright and polite, no one approached him today.

However, only one person, whom it was hard to tell if he had tact or not, pushed through Sa-hyeon’s dark cloud, approached, and slapped his broad back with a palm. Everyone who heard the sound flinched and stiffened their shoulders.

“I can’t take it anymore. Why on earth is the world-famous Heavenly Treasure Blade Lim Sa-hyeon looking so dead! Surely your sister wouldn’t kill her own brother?”

“She’ll kill me… she’ll really kill me. You don’t know my sister… Haa.”

Sa-hyeon, muttering gloomily, suddenly rubbed his face roughly and grabbed the collar of his close friend who spoke to him, shaking him hard. The boy, who wasn’t small in stature but looked infinitely small compared to Sa-hyeon, shook helplessly in his hands.

“You… it’s because of you! It’s because you interfered! What are you going to do! You don’t know wh… what kind of person my sister is. How dirty my sister’s temper is!”

“Then can’t you just not see that sister at all?”

“If I run away, she’ll chase me and kill me!”

Sa-hyeon, raising his voice as if screaming Wah, finally made a crying sound and covered his face again. Moyong Seo, who had been laughing frivolously even while being shaken by hands like pot lids, only then realized the seriousness and made an excuse that was better left unsaid with an awkward expression.

“But since you act so disgusted every time your sister is mentioned yet insisted on going to Guangdong this time, I got curious.”

“…Then why are you following me, Young Clan Head?”

“My brother is coming because he cherishes me so much and is worried.”

“Why didn’t you let me send a carrier pigeon…”

“If I said I was going, surely many people would chatter all over the neighborhood and interpret it however they wanted, so I thought it would be rude to the Hao Sect side.”

“Speaking honestly?”

“Because it’s more fun to surprise them?”

“Heueeong.”

Why did I ever get involved with something like you… Sa-hyeon sobbed. As he said, right now Sa-hyeon’s life was hanging by a thread because of the whims of that troublemaking youngest young master of the Moyong Clan.

Sa-hyeon was a young man who didn’t write more than three lines even when writing a letter to his master, and wrote only the business without greetings when writing to his sister Sa-yeong, but at least he knew how to distinguish what he should do and what he shouldn’t. And he had understood the concept that ‘if I don’t report in advance, I’ll be in big trouble at my sister’s hands’ since he was very young.

So he tried to stop by a branch of the Hao Sect to convey the news of Moyong Seo who joined suddenly before crossing the Yangtze River, Moyong Dan who came along following Moyong Seo, and the homecoming that grew in scale along with it… but he couldn’t do anything because Moyong Seo stuck to him persistently out of god knows what whim.

If he tried to lift a brush, the paper flew away in a playful wind raised by a sword tip, and if he slipped away from the party, the letter he had put in his bosom was torn in half before he knew it. Because of that, the procession accompanied by several horses and warriors proceeded along the road without delay, and Sa-hyeon ended up accompanying them as if dragged along in a daze.

And before he knew it, they were already in Guangdong.

Lim Sa-hyeon was finished.